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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29365368">en deuil</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/firewoodwander/pseuds/firewoodwander'>firewoodwander</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Episode S06E01: The Unknown, Fix-It, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Sex, Sex as a coping method, Temporary Character Death, Time Loop, brief Jesse/Tup for emotional reasons</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 04:55:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,712</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29365368</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/firewoodwander/pseuds/firewoodwander</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Tup dies.<br/>Tup wakes up.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>CT-27-5555 | ARC-5555 | Fives/CT-5385 | Tup</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>76</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>en deuil</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>:O Something with plot?? Something more than 2k?? <i>Something I've been told is angsty???</i> Holy shit it must be a parallel universe</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tup wakes up dead.</p><p>Well, put it this way—when everything went black, Tup knew he was dying. Dying with Fives’ hand in his, his pained and horrified expression the last thing he saw. But now he blinks his eyes open, and above him is the familiar underside of the bunk above his own.</p><p><em> What? </em> is his first thought. Second is how tired he is, to which he groans and lifts a hand to rub at the side of his face. Third is that if this is his afterlife, whatever happened between the times he was conscious has certainly sent him to hell.</p><p>So he gets up and makes his bunk as usual, because what else is he supposed to do?</p><p>It’s disorienting to say the least. Tup certainly never expected to be ‘awake’ again, let alone traipsing around a starship in his blacks amongst sleeping brothers. He daren’t look at their faces, so instead steps towards the door and marvels at the detail it bears. Everything looks the same, feels the same, all down to the scorch mark beside the panel where Tirra—</p><p>“Tup?” Tup’s heart drops through the floor of his rib cage. “What’re you doing? It’s the middle of the sleep cycle.”</p><p>Tup turns, slowly. Jesse sits on the edge of his bunk, leaning forward to peer at him while he brushes the sleep from his eyes. His voice is low, gravelly from sleep, and he doesn’t seem concerned in the least for where they are.</p><p>
  <em> What happened while he was gone? </em>
</p><p>“Jesse?” he asks. It barely reaches a whisper. “Is that you?”</p><p>“Yeah?” Jesse lowers his hand to look properly.</p><p>“What happened?”</p><p>“What happened? What do you mean what happened? I don’t think anything’s <em> happened… </em> Are you all right?”</p><p>Tup swallows and takes one more look at the door panel. “Yeah…” he says. “Must’ve been a bad dream.”</p><p>Shuffling from a couple of bunks over draws Tup’s attention. Another vod sits up on his elbow, and Tup almost whimpers in pain.</p><p>“Wha’s goin’ on?” Fives grumbles. He blinks blearily into the semi-darkness. “Tup? You okay?”</p><p>“Fine,” Tup whispers. Jesse groans and throws back his blanket in invitation.</p><p>“You want someone to stay with you?”</p><p>Hesitantly, he nods. He’d quite like to have his panic privately, seeing as no one seems to have noticed they’re dead yet, but he also thinks it might be rude to have woken both of them up and refuse the invitation.</p><p>So he slips into Jesse’s bunk with nary a whisper of fabric and settles along his side, and Jesse sighs through his nose and pulls him closer to settle the blanket over them both. Fives grunts and drops himself back down to his mattress.</p><p>“The Nightmares again?” Jesse murmurs.</p><p>Tup grimaces. “Something like that.”</p><p>Jesse’s arm is like a brand around his middle with how warm he is, and a wall of solid muscle at his back. Tup curls over his knees and tries not to whimper at the gentle brush of fingers over his stomach.</p><p>“I’m so sorry,” he whispers. </p><p>Jesse squeezes him briefly in his hold. “Nothing to be sorry for, kid.”</p><p>When Tup wakes again, they’re en route to rendezvous with Generals Tiplee and Tiplar and Commander Doom above Ringo Vinda. </p><p>Tup excuses himself to be sick in the refreshers.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t think I can do this.”</p><p>Fives looks at him strangely, frowning as he gives him a superficial once over. “What’s wrong?” he asks, and Tup wonders how to say <em> I don’t know, but everything is about to go horribly wrong and I don’t know how to stop it </em> without sounding like he’s been breathing in a few too many engine exhausts.</p><p>The first time he’d woken up, he’d thought himself dead. He still does, if he’s being totally honest with himself, but he’d gone with the flow and relived the station over Ringo Vinda another few times before he realised that nothing was changing. Nothing. Down to the very breathing patterns of his best friends.</p><p>“I don’t feel well,” he says. It’s weak, for a perfectly Kaminoan-engineered clone. Pathetic, even. “I… I have a migraine, or something. Can barely see straight.”</p><p>“That’s not supposed to happen,” Fives mutters, but he already has his arm around Tup’s shoulders and is guiding him gently from the room. He lifts a hand to cover Tup’s face. “Close your eyes, if it hurts.”</p><p>Coric frowns at him, too, when they reach the medical wing. He pokes and prods and Tup gets the closest he ever has to praying while he watches tiny ships maneouver in the distance in the false holofeed viewport at the end of the wing. </p><p>Fives doesn’t come back once the station’s been taken, and Tup finds himself strapped to a table once again. This try is shorter than the last three, not that he remembers much of it.</p><p> </p><p>On the sixth try he climbs into Fives’ bunk the moment he wakes, shaking with more than just the chill of vacuum. Fives tries to talk to him again, ask him what’s wrong, but he shakes his head and curls tighter around him, pulling him to his chest and refusing to let go. Fives lets him, hushes him softly, runs his fingers through Tup’s hair in the way he’s always found inexplicably calming until he falls back to sleep.</p><p>In the morning they go to Kix and Tup tries to keep Fives with him, stumbling over his argument on the grounds that he’s the only one who seems to have noticed Tup’s struggling and as moral support. It doesn’t work, but it does make Kix give him the same odd look Fives gave him before.</p><p>“Be <em> careful </em> out there,” Tup pleads before he leaves. Fives gives him the grin and chucks his chin with a wink.</p><p>“Course I will, gorgeous. Have I ever done anything to make you think otherwise?”</p><p>Tup feels a little gratified that Kix shares exactly the same unimpressed look with him before knocking Fives in the shoulder.</p><p>“Yeah, yeah,” he says. “You heard the man. Now get out of my medbay and don’t come back on a stretcher.”</p><p>If, in the end, Fives does or doesn’t, Tup doesn’t know. It’s the shortest loop yet—that he knows of. He’s pretty much convinced he’s not quite dead by now, but that doesn’t mean he knows <em> how. </em></p><p> </p><p>Tup goes straight to the Captain. The Captain sends him to Coric, and nothing changes.</p><p>Tup goes to the Captain and says he thinks there might be a danger to the General. The Captain sends him to Coric again, though this time he’s interrupted by Kix and General Skywalker. Tup yells with the pain in his head at the sight of them, wakes up hours later strapped to a table. Nothing changes.</p><p>Tup doesn’t say anything. Nothing changes.</p><p>Tup doesn’t say anything. Nothing changes.</p><p>Tup cries himself back to sleep in a locked cupboard on an unused level. Nothing changes.</p><p>Tup doesn’t say anything. Nothing changes.</p><p>Tup doesn’t bother covering himself when they run into enemy fire. Nothing changes.</p><p>Fives screams and holds him every time he goes down. Nothing changes.</p><p>Tup doesn’t say anything. Nothing changes.</p><p>Tup doesn’t say anything. Nothing—</p><p>Tup doesn’t say anything.</p><p>Tup doesn’t.</p><p>He doesn’t. </p><p>
  <em> He can’t. </em>
</p><p>Tup trips over a droid carcass while they push their advantage, too caught up in his own mind to remember it would be there. Fives cries out in pain and tries to hide a shot to the gut. Because Tup didn’t push him out of the way. Because Tup didn’t—</p><p>Kix thanks him for hauling Fives out of the way in time to keep him from being taken out for good. Tup nods and lets him pry his fingers away and doesn’t scream even if it nearly kills him because he didn’t want to know that this is how it happened,</p><p>He wakes up in the barracks with a gasp and a sob.</p><p>On shaking legs he stands, pulls his blanket with him, and stumbles over to the door. His fingers find the scorch mark beside the panel and the matting skin the carbon scoring left behind.</p><p>“Tup?” Jesse asks. “What’re you doing? It’s the middle of the sleep cycle.”</p><p>“Jesse?” Tup asks in return. </p><p>“Yeah, it’s me. What’s up?”</p><p>He turns, shows him a weak smile. “Must’ve been a bad dream.”</p><p>There’s a shuffling from over by Tup’s bunk and Fives pushes himself nearly upright, grumbling as he rouses. “Wha’s goin’ on?”</p><p>“Sorry,” Tup says. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”</p><p>“You okay?”</p><p>“Yeah, I’m fine.”</p><p>Jesse groans and shifts over in his bunk, holding up the blanket. “Want to stay with someone?”</p><p>Tup feels Fives’ eyes on him as he climbs in with Jesse and lets him wrap the blankets around both of them. He listens for the grunt and thud and smiles to himself when Jesse pulls him closer.</p><p>“The Nightmares?” he asks gruffly.</p><p>Tup nods. The Nightmares come to life, maybe, but this Jesse doesn’t know about that yet.</p><p>“I feel like I’m losing my mind,” he whispers to the darkness.</p><p>“Hmm? Why’s that?”</p><p>For a moment Tup is quiet. Then, “If you were trying to do something, but everything you could think of that might help doesn’t work, what would you do?”</p><p>Jesse hums again and shifts on his side. “I’d go with brute force first. How many times have you tried?”</p><p>“Enough. Doesn’t work.”</p><p>“Made a list of all the options, tried to go through each one?”</p><p>“As many as I can think of.”</p><p>“Do you think it’s even possible for you to fix?”</p><p>Tup’s heart thuds as if he missed a downwards step. “I hope so.”</p><p>“Then… You could always try throwing anything you want at it until something fits? Anything you can think of, or just anything at all. If nothing logical has worked, maybe something illogical would instead.”</p><p>Tup pulls his lip between his teeth as he considers. “I hadn’t thought of it like that before,” he admits quietly. “Thank you.”</p><p>“You’re welcome.”</p><p>And Jesse doesn’t ask about it, doesn’t press any further. Tup doesn’t have to struggle to answer. He only falls to sleep in his arms for the second time in this endless eventloop, wondering what Fives might have said if he’d gone to him instead.</p><p>But he mulls it over, Jesse’s advice, and tries desperately to work up a plan to fit it to his problem. He’s more grateful than he first realised, and for Jesse’s company too, not just his wisdom. He’s kind, and funny, and warm and amicable, and maybe that’s what prompts Tup to drop all of his schemes and throw himself into the first impulse that comes along.</p><p>“Do you think Jesse likes me?”</p><p>Fives looks up from his blaster to give Tup a questioning look. “Er, yeah?” he says. “Sure Jesse likes you. D’you think he didn’t?”</p><p>“No, no—” he bites his lip to keep in a giggle, “—do you think he might be into me?”</p><p>“What?” Fives fumbles his cleaning rag in what, Tup thinks, is entirely unnecessary alarm.</p><p>Tup chews the inside of his cheek and lets a leg dangle from where he’s sitting on Fives’ top bunk. “You know…”</p><p>Fives swallows and scratches the hair just above his ear. “Well, er, maybe? I don’t see why not. Is this about last night?”</p><p>“Sort of, I guess…”</p><p>“Not because—never mind. Er, Jesse. I don’t know? He doesn’t talk much about these things, really. Oh, but I have noticed he’s been hanging around the medbay more often. But still. Maybe.”</p><p>Tup says nothing more than a quiet ‘Oh,’ and goes back to polishing his armour, letting Fives fidget in the following quiet.</p><p>“Why did you want to know?” he blurts out after a while, all in a rush. Tup looks up from his blotchy-painted spaulder. “Are you really interested in him?”</p><p>Ah.</p><p>
  <em> Interesting. </em>
</p><p>“I wouldn’t say so, exactly,” Tup hedges. He can barely contain his smirk when Fives begins to glare at his blaster. “Although, he does have such <em> nice </em> arms…”</p><p>He really, really oughtn't be toying with Fives like this. Tup almost feels bad watching him unsubtly pause to glance at his own arms—which, of course, are built with mouth-watering ARC-standard muscle that even Jesse would be hard pressed to surpass as things are now—but has to bite down on his grin regardless.</p><p>“You sure there isn’t something you want to tell me, Fives?”</p><p>“Huh?”</p><p>Fives looks up again. It’s sort of endearing, watching such a smart man run himself in circles.</p><p>Tup leans forward, armour forgotten, and perches his chin in his palm and his elbow oh his crossed knees. “Well, you do seem awfully interested yourself.”</p><p>“Interested in what?”</p><p>“Uh, who I’m interested in?”</p><p>“Oh, you think?” Fives doesn’t look up, but he does start cleaning the poor blaster all over again. “Am I not allowed to be? You’re my best friend, after all.”</p><p>“Hmm, but I think you know what I mean.” </p><p>For a moment Tup wonders if he’s overstepped. He thinks Fives might be about to draw back in on himself and close off, and it’s his fault, he pushed too far—</p><p>“I’m not risking our friendship over it,” Fives admits quietly. “You mean a lot more to me than that.”</p><p>Tup slips off the edge of the mattress and lands lightly on his toes, slinking down to sit on his bunk underneath. The fabric of his blanket is familiar between his fingers.</p><p>“You know, I wasn’t <em> really </em> serious about Jesse. Like you said, it’s always easier to joke about than risk a friendship…”</p><p>Fives hums in agreement but neither stops nor looks up. Tup finds himself biting his lip again, standing from his bunk to go and sit quietly next to Fives on Jesse’s. Their arms brush together when he leans in. His hands grip the edge of the mattress, his heart races beneath the skin of his throat, and finally, Fives meets his eyes again.</p><p>Tup leans their shoulders together and stays there. He turns his palm upwards on his leg and glances down, measures the space between their fingers. Fives follows his gaze and slowly lets go of his blaster, lying his fingers in Tup’s palm and letting him curl around them. When he looks at Tup’s face again, his eyes drop down to his smiling mouth.</p><p>“What if we weren’t going to ruin anything?” Tup breathes. </p><p>“You don’t know that,” Fives says against his lips, but his throat has to work around it, and it doesn’t hide the way he’s drawn closer by gravity alone.</p><p> </p><p>The next time, Tup doesn’t hesitate so much. He’d woken up, hoped Fives would remember—for nothing. So he sits closer than necessary in the mess. He lets his hand brush Fives’ arm and their thighs press together on the bench. He grins, watching Fives glow and embolden under the attention, and tries to let everything else drop away to the background. </p><p>Fives kisses him in a quiet hallway, half-hidden around a corner. He smiles when Tup laughs and his breathing hitches and nips at his neck when he tries to sneak cold fingers under blacks. He lets Tup’s hair tumble over their shoulders while he hooks his leg over his hip.</p><p>When it happens, all Tup feels is the exhilaration of Fives’ skin on his. His heart soars and flutters with every word, every smile, every kiss that lands soft and passionate and everything in between. It’s the heat of Fives’ gaze on him, giving him those wide pleading eyes between writhing and moaning, begging him with his little noises. Tup groans and fucks him harder, hitches Fives’ knees up to his chest and comes, filling him from the inside. Fives whines and takes it and jerks himself off with haste until he comes all over his hand and chest.</p><p>He feels a pang of guilt when he’s lying in bed long after, sweat cooling on their skin, at a time when Fives remembers the feel of Tup’s hair in his fist while he fucks him from behind but not the feel of Tup’s mouth on every inch of him, nor the feel of Tup’s cock between his thighs when he’s pressed into the tiles of the showers.</p><p>Feels like crying when it’s Jesse’s hand on his hip instead, when he’s perched on his knee and <em> happy </em> despite it all, despite the creeping knowledge that he’s unravelling at the seams and shattering to pieces. When he leans back into a chest that’s a few inches too narrow and gives a few millimetres too easily.</p><p>When the last thing he remembers is Fives’ lips on his in the cold sterility of a Kaminoan operating theatre, because nothing ever changes.</p><p> </p><p>Tup wakes in his bunk with the phantoms of tears clinging to his eyelashes.</p><p>The heaving breaths of another vod startle him, and within the moment Fives drops down from the bunk above and staggers, unsteady, to the foot of their bed.</p><p>“Fives?” he whispers, caught off-guard.</p><p>Fives clutches his face with one hand and clings to the bunk frame with the other. “I’m fine,” he breathes, strangled, his eyes screwed tight shut. “Fine. Didn’t mean to wake you.”</p><p>Tup watches him for a long moment. He seems to catch his breath and then his balance, straightening up and blinking rapidly. He meets Tup’s eyes and smiles weakly.</p><p>“Don’t know what came over me.”</p><p>Tup blinks. He shifts over on the bed and holds his arms out, uncaring for another hard reset on their relationship in that moment. Fives laughs hoarsely and goes to him—just the barest hint of unsteadiness on his feet—climbing onto the bunk and unhesitatingly into Tup’s arms.</p><p>“Needed a friend?” he asks. Tup smiles.</p><p>“Something like that.”</p><p>Fives’ expression freezes and melts into one of mild concern as he settles in Tup’s hold. He lifts a hand to brush his thumb just below Tup’s eye; it comes away damp.</p><p>“Bad dreams,” Tup murmurs. </p><p>Fives’ jaw clenches. </p><p>His arm winds around the small of Tup’s back and pulls him close, and Tup lets himself bury his nose in that familiar, beloved neck.</p><p>“I’m here now, gorgeous,” Fives rumbles. “Going to chase away all those bad dreams for you.”</p><p>“I know,” Tup smiles. “You always do.”</p><p>Quiet settles over them like a second blanket. It’s never silence—silence in the same room as several dozen sleeping men is a tall order—but it’s near enough, a reduction to background noise and the lulling call of sleep.</p><p>“Why do you call me that?” Tup asks when Fives’ breathing has settled.</p><p>“Hmm?” His hand strokes the skin of Tup’s spine. “Call you what?”</p><p>“Well, you know…” He feels a tired smile grow against his temple. “That I’m…”</p><p>“Gorgeous? Because you are.”</p><p>Tup pinches him. “It would be more direct if you just flirted with the mirror instead.”</p><p><em> “What, </em> you don’t like me flirting with you?” </p><p>Tup grins, doesn’t laugh because he thinks he might crack, and nudges closer. “Never said that.” He presses a kiss to Fives’ collar just to hear his breath catch in his throat. A hand tightens on his waist and Tup leans back, blinking coyly up through his lashes.</p><p>“Maybe I think you’re pretty too.”</p><p>Fives’ lips are the feel of home. One he wants to sink into, never leave, drown himself there within. In the hours before they arrive at Ringo Vinda he lets Fives roll him onto his back and kiss him senseless, lets him run his hands down beneath his blacks where they have-haven’t been before. </p><p>He whines as Fives opens him up, pants and rolls his hips into it, teases Fives how he knows he likes it. </p><p>Tonight, Tup doesn’t care for how much noise he makes. He pants and whimpers with the burn of his thighs while he works himself on Fives’ cock, cries out, moans in ways he’d be heckled for if there were anyone else around when Fives holds his wrists and pulls his hair and fucks him face-down in the sheets. There are tears in his eyes, bruising fingers at his hips, and Fives’ voice in his ear murmuring the sweetest things he’ll never get tired of hearing.</p><p>“This isn’t the first time we’ve done this.”</p><p>Pressed shoulder to knee to tangled legs, Tup knows Fives feels him tense at the words. Fives brushes Tup’s hair from his face, tucks it neatly behind his ear. Stares at him as if in dawning comprehension. </p><p>“This isn’t… How…”</p><p>“Fives?”</p><p>Fives closes his eyes and lets his brow furrow deeply. “No, we’ve… We’ve done this. We’ve been here. How many times have we…?”</p><p>Tup lets him put a few inches between them on the pillow. “Fives, what is it? What’s wrong?”</p><p>“How many times have you <em> done </em> this?” he breathes. His eyes blink open, <em> horrified. </em></p><p>“You remember.” </p><p>It’s what strikes him first, despite the swirling panic and guilt that begins to choke his throat. He reaches out to touch Fives’ face as the tears well up again—kriffing incessant waterworks since this all started. Fives touches his wrist and lets his fingers trail over Tup’s arm. “You remember it.”</p><p>He nods. Tup has to bite his lip to keep from sobbing. “I… This isn’t the first time we’ve been here.”</p><p>“No.” Tup shakes his head, wills away the tears even as they fall. His breath shudders in his lungs with every strained inhale. “No, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”</p><p>Fives’ hands find his face while he’s blinded by his sorrow and nausea. They mirror Tup’s on his own, thumbs following the cut of his cheeks beneath his eyes and fingers curled around his jaw beneath his ears.</p><p>“It’s okay,” he says over and over. Tup doesn’t know why he’s still here, letting him shake apart in his arms. “It’s okay, cyar’ika, let it out.”</p><p>“I never knew which time would be my last.”</p><p>Fives holds him and doesn’t stop stroking his hair. Tup clings to him, only half a mind on the nail marks he must be digging into his shoulders, and shudders harder with every kiss to the side of his head.</p><p>“Is it selfish of me to ask about that one time it wasn’t me you went to?”</p><p>Despite it all, Tup finds himself laughing. “I never said all of my ideas were <em>good</em> ones.”</p><p>“Oh? He’s a good man, I wouldn’t blame you.”</p><p>Tup squeezes the last of the tears from his eyes and drags himself back together long enough to look Fives in the face again.</p><p>“I love you,” he says. “And I fell more in love with you with every first kiss you gave me.”</p><p>Fives swallows and wipes the tacky tracks from Tup’s cheeks. He leans forward, then, kissing him once more. “Even if that’s true, I can still hope that’s the last of them. You have no idea what it does to me, knowing you still chose me every single time.”</p><p>Tup lets another awkward, slightly-hysterical laugh slip past his lips. “Apparently I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t have you there with me.”</p><p>There’s a minute of relative peace as Tup calms down, safe and wanting nothing but to stay like this forever. But from one moment to the next, Fives’ soft and sad expression morphs into something decidedly more alarmed.</p><p>“Stars,” he breathes. Tup sits up when he practically launches himself from the bunk into the empty barracks. “Force kriffing <em> stars.” </em></p><p>“Fives?” he asks warily. “What is it?”</p><p>“Bad,” Fives replies as he paces. “Bad, bad—very, very bad.”</p><p>Pulling the blanket with him, Tup swings his legs over the edge of the bunk to stand. “Is it… Is it about what’s wrong with me?”</p><p>“Yes.” His voice is heavy with grief. “Yes, and so much more.”</p><p>Tup steps in front of him, soothes a hand over his chest and shoulder. “Okay,” he says. “Okay. How are we going to fix it?”</p><p>Gingerly, Fives strokes his cheek again, like he can’t help it. “We need to get you a level five brain scan, and to keep you away from the Jedi.”</p><p>With the sheet still clutched to his front Tup leans forward, drawn into his chest, fighting back wave upon wave of dread and guilt.</p><p>“Okay,” he says. “We can figure it out.” Fives pulls him close, rests his chin on Tup’s temple. “We still have time.”</p><p>“Yeah, we do.” He chuckles. Tup thinks of all the loops he took where he didn’t have this—didn’t have <em> them. </em> He pities that him.</p><p>Fives inhales a count of four, holds, exhales a count of four.</p><p>“And I don’t think you’d let me forget, but I have a whole bank of life debts I need to start paying back. So, what d’you say?”</p><p> </p><p>Ringo Vinda still makes Tup shake behind his helmet. But this time Fives dodges between blaster bolts, puts his own between the photoreceptors of any droids he can reach before they take out other vod’e. Tup keeps his head down, doesn’t look at anyone who isn’t wearing a visor.</p><p>When they pause at the confluence he staggers with the nausea. He can feel it getting worse with every moment passed, knocks Fives in the arm to let him know. Fives brushes their fingers together, taps bracers, and goes to talk to Rex. He can’t hear what they say over the general noise of the station, but Rex looks over at him and then nods at whatever Fives says, signalling something that looks like <em> stay together. </em></p><p>Skywalker sends them off with General Tiplar; Tup no longer feels any shame in not meeting his general’s eyes when addressed, and Skywalker’s too preoccupied to notice.</p><p><em> “Don’t pull back!” </em> Fives shouts. They’ve reached the observation bay. <em> “Push forward!” </em></p><p>There’s a hand on Tup’s shoulder, steadying him as the right side of his head aches in waves and pulses. </p><p>A shot. It’s a bit like a punch to the spine.</p><p>He wakes up, later, surrounded by ringing silence and hills of flesh-plastoid-metallic corpses. His head pounds something awful, a drum beat worse than any marching song thrumming through his veins. He drags himself upright and nearly trips on a stray droid limb, flung as far out as he is, hidden tucked behind a tall stack of crates. Most things electronic are sparking. Through his watery vision he can see clone armour bobbing around behind the window of the control deck.</p><p>
  <em> They did it. </em>
</p><p>“Tup?”</p><p>General Skywalker stands in the opening of one of the offshoot passages. Tup turns towards his voice before he can think better of it, though he snaps his head away at the last moment and grunts with the pain of it.</p><p><em> “Tup?” </em> comes the Captain’s much more frantic exclamation. “Tup! You’re alive!”</p><p>“S-Sir,” Tup replies shakily.</p><p>“Thank Manda, you’re alive.” Rex comes skidding to a halt at his side, tilting his head in obvious assessment when he notices how ill Tup is acting. “Fives said he saw you go down and not come back up…”</p><p>“Fives? He’s okay?”</p><p>“And ready to go another round it seems.”</p><p>Tup groans with another flash of pain. He blinks, and when he opens his eyes Rex is holding him back, an arm across his throat as he thrashes.</p><p>“Tup!” he shouts. “What’s gotten into you?”</p><p>Tup can feel half-formed words die behind his lips. He goes slack in Rex’s hold, pushes him away when he’s let go.</p><p>“Get away from me,” he whimpers. “There’s something wrong with me, it’s not safe!”</p><p>
  <em> “Tup!” </em>
</p><p>Fives is running towards them, skirting Skywalker in an attempt to keep Tup’s gaze drawn away. Tup staggers towards him and grips tightly at his proffered wrists. A brief relief—he feels like he can breathe again.</p><p>“It’s his head,” Fives might be saying. Sound is distant. “It’s been bothering him the last few cycles. He needs to get to medical.”</p><p>Everything begins to drop away in its entirety. The last thing Tup feels is Fives’ fingers on the inside of his elbow before the darkness returns with a vengeance; it’s not like being knocked out, not at all. Rather, it’s more like being <em> locked </em> out. Trapped behind a wall where he has no idea what’s going on outside, just him and the darkness and the marching on of sticky, stretchy, unreliable time. But he knows something’s out there, in his place. Something cold and hungry and malicious. Something that’s no remnant of him.</p><p>Except it is, intermittently. Whenever he sees with his own eyes again, it’s at whatever plain and boring ceiling is above him. Fives smiles at him when he wakes up first, grim with determination.</p><p>“We’re taking you back to Kamino, gorgeous,” he says. “Get you all checked out and fixed up.”</p><p>Tup says something, maybe. Fives inches forward to take one bound hand between both of his. </p><p>“They said I could tag along in case the Seps try to nab you back, investigate that <em> virus </em> they must’ve put in you.”</p><p>The next time isn’t until much later, when he’s the only one in the dim room of his memory-nightmares. Thankfully, he isn’t awake for very long then.</p><p> </p><p>Tup wakes up, and the ceiling above him is the dark underside of Fives’ bunk.</p><p><em> “Shit—” </em> a hissed breath from overhead. </p><p>Tup closes his eyes and wills the return of his determination.</p><p>They have a plan now; all they have to do is perfect the details.</p><p> </p><p>Tup shudders with the weight of his memories, grits his teeth, and fights. </p><p>Fives stuns him, tucks him behind a stack of crates.</p><p>They take back the station. </p><p>Tup loses control.</p><p>Shuttle ceiling.</p><p>Kamino. </p><p>They wake up.</p><p>They wait.</p><p>They fight.</p><p>Fives stuns him.</p><p>They wait.</p><p>They fight. </p><p>Fives stuns him.</p><p>General Ti.</p><p>They wake up.</p><p>Fives fucks him through his despair.</p><p>They fight.</p><p>Nala Se.</p><p>They wake up.</p><p>They fight.</p><p>They wake up.</p><p>They hold each other and shake.</p><p>The shuttle.</p><p>The dreams.</p><p>They wake up.</p><p>They fight.</p><p>The dreams.</p><p>The shuttle.</p><p>General Ti.</p><p> </p><p>The chip.</p><p> </p><p>Tup wakes up, and the ceiling above him is a gentle, pale sea of <em> bright. </em> He shuts his eyes immediately against the onslaught of sensation; at his side, a warm and slightly clammy grip spasms around his fingers.</p><p>“Tup,” breathes a voice that may be the same as any other clone’s. To him, and to many others, it can only belong to Fives. </p><p>Tup groans and shifts his head from side to side. At least the pounding has subsided. Gone, in fact. It’s… quiet.</p><p>“Force, Tup, you’re awake.”</p><p>When he turns his head and cautiously cracks open his eyes again, Fives is leaning over him at his bedside. At least—no, it <em> is </em> Fives. Only he’s shaved his head, and Tup’s murky thoughts don’t quite parse the idea quickly enough not to leave him a little taken aback.</p><p>“Fi…s,” he tries to croak out. Instantly Fives is helping him raise his head enough to drink from a water cup nicer than any you’d usually find on Kamino. General Ti, perhaps?</p><p>But no, the bed is all wrong. The sheets are slick-soft, rather than cheap and staticky. The pillows are far too deep, even for having two of them stacked beneath him, and the colours are… Well, there <em> are </em> colours. Pale ones subdued and understated, but something that isn’t stark white and cyber blue.</p><p>“Fives,” he says once the water is gone. “Fives, what’s happening?”</p><p>Fives’ hand tightens around his fingers. His smile is wobbly but genuinely happy enough for Tup to feel sparks strike up a tiny light of hope deep in his chest.</p><p>“We’re on Coruscant,” Fives replies, taking him completely by surprise. “Tup, I, I think—I think we might have done it.”</p><p>Tup’s eyes snap open fully. He stares at Fives in wonder, barely registering the whisper of a door until one robed blue Nautolan glides through, smiling peacefully.</p><p>“Trooper Tup,” they say, “I am glad to see you awake and coherent. You have undergone quite the trauma, as we understand it.”</p><p>Tup thinks he smiles as he melts into the too-soft mattress, the too-plush pillows and the warmth of Fives’ hand in his. “It feels like it,” he admits quietly. The healer sighs. </p><p>“The discovery made by yourself and Fives may have uncovered an awful, terrible truth about this war we’re fighting, and for that I am truly grateful. But for now you must not worry about that—only recovering.” They refill Tup’s water glass from a side table and help Fives prop him gingerly up on the bed.</p><p>“The Kaminoans appear to have implanted some manner of chip in all of you,” they continue. “Without exception, it is becoming apparent. Master Che and the Council are still deliberating the purpose and implications of such an act. Unfortunately, Fives had to give up your degraded chip as a lost cause to placate the Kaminoans; he did, however, remove his own in secret, and provided us with a fully functional sample to dissect.” One hand graces his arm with the lightest of touches. “I sense you are healing well after the troubles you had, but you will be here until your health returns in full and until this plot is uncovered.”</p><p>“We’re safe now,” Fives says. He squeezes Tup’s hand again. “The Sith Lord doesn’t know we know. We’ve <em> done it.” </em></p><p>Tup laughs. It hurts his scratchy throat to do it, but then again it hurts to move at all right now, and there’s no feeling that can truly compare to the relief of this weight lifted from his shoulders. </p><p>The healer leaves them to be. Tup pulls Fives down immediately to kiss him, and doesn’t even care if his breath is sour or if Fives has been chewing his lip to bits with worry. Fives, who strips down to his blacks faster than Tup’s ever seen, slides onto the bed beside him, with plenty of room for the both of them, and curls around him with giddy relief.</p><p>Tup’s eyes slip closed as he falls back into his drowsiness in Fives’ warmth, but when he wakes up with Fives wrapped around him the next morning, the ceiling of the Temple Infirmary remains exactly as it is.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Find me here on <a href="https://firewoodwander.tumblr.com/">tumblr!</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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